The ambitious journey of Stephen King’s THE DARK TOWER book series to the bigscreen and TV has hit another setback, as Warner Bros., which had been in talks to take it on after Universal let it go, has also decided to not move forward. Ron Howard would direct and produce along with Brian Grazer and King through Grazer and Howard’s Imagine Entertainment banner. Warner Bros. had no comment. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman had recently delivered his latest draft for the film’s first installment and Russell Crowe had shown interest in playing the lead if Warners gave the film a greenlight. Series revolves around gunslinger Roland Deschain who roams an Old West-like landscape in search of a dark tower, in hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world. Imagine is still able to take the project back out to other studios, but this latest news is a blow to the film’s future — when Universal first let go of the film, most insiders around town believed WB was its best chance of getting made.

UPDATE: Media Rights Capital is in serious talks to take on The Dark Tower after Warner Bros declined to make what potentially amounts to three feature films and two limited run TV series. MRC’s Modi Wiczyk is a big fan of the Stephen King novel series, I hear, and the company is eager to capitalize on the positive momentum they got from developing and financing the Seth MacFarlane-directed summer sleeper hit Ted with Mark Wahlberg. MRC next has the Neill Blomkamp-directed Elysium with Matt Damon, and the company has the capital to back an ambitious project like The Dark Tower with director Ron Howard eyeing Russell Crowe as the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his quest to travel through a Western-style world woven with magic to find the Dark Tower, mankind’s only hope. Akiva Goldsman adapted the book and is producing along with Brian Grazer and Stephen King. Even though MRC was unavailable to comment, I expect this deal to make quickly. MRC has a distribution arrangement with Universal, but it’s unclear whether that studio would release the film. Universal developed it but passed on making the project before it moved to Warner Bros.

Allstar wrote:

UPDATE: Media Rights Capital is in serious talks to take on The Dark Tower after Warner Bros declined to make what potentially amounts to three feature films and two limited run TV series. MRC’s Modi Wiczyk is a big fan of the Stephen King novel series, I hear, and the company is eager to capitalize on the positive momentum they got from developing and financing the Seth MacFarlane-directed summer sleeper hit Ted with Mark Wahlberg. MRC next has the Neill Blomkamp-directed Elysium with Matt Damon, and the company has the capital to back an ambitious project like The Dark Tower with director Ron Howard eyeing Russell Crowe as the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his quest to travel through a Western-style world woven with magic to find the Dark Tower, mankind’s only hope. Akiva Goldsman adapted the book and is producing along with Brian Grazer and Stephen King. Even though MRC was unavailable to comment, I expect this deal to make quickly. MRC has a distribution arrangement with Universal, but it’s unclear whether that studio would release the film. Universal developed it but passed on making the project before it moved to Warner Bros.

IWatchFilmsNotMovies wrote:Something tells me this will never get made.

IWatchFilmsNotMovies wrote:Something tells me this will never get made.